7 ms·

So when will chips with a fix in silicon be available?

by pdelbarba 9y ago

ashleyn 9y ago
I'm giving it one to two generations of CPUs before I do a new build.
- krylon 9y ago
  But since the OS fixes to protect against meltdown come with a potential performance penalty, AMD is a better choice now than it was a week ago.
  - snuxoll 9y ago
    Been planning on buying EPYC for our upcoming OpenShift deployment already - now I’ve got a smoking gun to get management onboard.
welder 9y ago
Just buy an AMD chip right now.
- privong 9y ago
  > Just buy an AMD chip right now. AMD chips are reportedly susceptible to Spectre, so that's not going to help. From https://meltdownattack.com https://meltdownattack.com: Almost every system is affected by Spectre: Desktops, Laptops, Cloud Servers, as well as Smartphones. More specifically, all modern processors capable of keeping many instructions in flight are potentially vulnerable. In particular, we have verified Spectre on Intel, AMD, and ARM processors.
  - lawrenceyan 9y ago
    Meltdown, however, is the one that results in nontrivial performance degradation in order to patch. And Meltdown specifically only affects Intel processors.
    - onedognight 9y ago
      Meltdown affects some ARM prcessors as well. https://developer.arm.com/support/security-update https://developer.arm.com/support/security-update
      - lawrenceyan 9y ago
        My response was in the context of privong stating that Intel and AMD were equivalently affected, when it is specifically Intel that suffers performance degradation in patching due to their unsafe usage of speculative execution.
        privong 9y ago
        I only said they were both affected by Spectre. But it wasn't clear if the OP was worried about performance issues or security issues, so it isn't clear on what basis they were suggesting that buying AMD is a solution.
    - noselasd 9y ago
      AMD is not susceptible to Meltdown. So the issue is not inherent to the x86_64 architecture. Knowing that, can it be possible that Intel can patch their CPU via micro-code in a manner that does not affect performance to a great degree, and not require a software patch to solve the Meltdown attach ?
- KirinDave 9y ago
  True for meltdown, not for spectre.
- sounds 9y ago
  Specifically buy an AMD Ryzen: https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution Ryzen is only affected by "Spectre variant one, Bounds Check Bypass" It's fixed by OS updates with negligible performance impact expected.
- xioxox 9y ago
  How common is the Linux segfault problem on Ryzen now? Just reading about the horrible RMA procedure puts me off AMD unless they can clean up their terrible handling of this problem.
  - paulmd 9y ago
    It's still out there. To be clear, virtually no chips before Week 25 pass the segfault test, a large number of chips afterwards pass the segfault test. AMD clearly either upped their production standards or is binning out the worst chips. But there is still a baseline of chips failing. Some reported instances: https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1635&tstart=0 https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1635&tstart=0 (user jcoiner, 1726PGT) https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1725&tstart=0 https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1725&tstart=0 (user scorpio810, 2x 1728SUS) https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1770&tstart=0 https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1770&tstart=0 (user ryzlin, 1733PGT) https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1785&tstart=0 https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1785&tstart=0 (user flyinryzen1700, 1737SUS) https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1830&tstart=0 https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1830&tstart=0 (user skimba 1725PGT, user xtronom 1728PGT) https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1860&tstart=0 https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1860&tstart=0 (user jc_yang, 1742SUS) https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/76q7ne/got_a_defective_ryzen_7_1700_on_rma_process/dofye3u/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/76q7ne/got_a_defective... (user grosbof 1733SUS) https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7ar15o/psa_amazon_is_still_selling_preweek_25_ryzens/dpc5iue/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7ar15o/psa_amazon_is_s... (user triplesal, 1733PGS) https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7ar15o/psa_amazon_is_still_selling_preweek_25_ryzens/dpcrkv0/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7ar15o/psa_amazon_is_s... (user istockporno, 1726PGT) Presumably this is something that will be fixed in the Zen+ stepping/Pinnacle Ridge (Ryzen 2 - not to be confused with Zen2, which will release in 2019?, likely as the Ryzen 3 series). But for the meantime, be aware that you are absolutely buying silicon with known issues and that you should test it and RMA if necessary, and that there is fixed silicon coming within a couple months here that will probably run significantly faster due to process improvements.

So when will chips with a fix in silicon be available?

ashleyn 9y ago

I'm giving it one to two generations of CPUs before I do a new build.

krylon 9y ago
But since the OS fixes to protect against meltdown come with a potential performance penalty, AMD is a better choice now than it was a week ago.
- snuxoll 9y ago
  Been planning on buying EPYC for our upcoming OpenShift deployment already - now I’ve got a smoking gun to get management onboard.

welder 9y ago

Just buy an AMD chip right now.

privong 9y ago
> Just buy an AMD chip right now. AMD chips are reportedly susceptible to Spectre, so that's not going to help. From https://meltdownattack.com https://meltdownattack.com: Almost every system is affected by Spectre: Desktops, Laptops, Cloud Servers, as well as Smartphones. More specifically, all modern processors capable of keeping many instructions in flight are potentially vulnerable. In particular, we have verified Spectre on Intel, AMD, and ARM processors.
- lawrenceyan 9y ago
  Meltdown, however, is the one that results in nontrivial performance degradation in order to patch. And Meltdown specifically only affects Intel processors.
  - onedognight 9y ago
    Meltdown affects some ARM prcessors as well. https://developer.arm.com/support/security-update https://developer.arm.com/support/security-update
    - lawrenceyan 9y ago
      My response was in the context of privong stating that Intel and AMD were equivalently affected, when it is specifically Intel that suffers performance degradation in patching due to their unsafe usage of speculative execution.
      - privong 9y ago
        I only said they were both affected by Spectre. But it wasn't clear if the OP was worried about performance issues or security issues, so it isn't clear on what basis they were suggesting that buying AMD is a solution.
  - noselasd 9y ago
    AMD is not susceptible to Meltdown. So the issue is not inherent to the x86_64 architecture. Knowing that, can it be possible that Intel can patch their CPU via micro-code in a manner that does not affect performance to a great degree, and not require a software patch to solve the Meltdown attach ?
KirinDave 9y ago
True for meltdown, not for spectre.
sounds 9y ago
Specifically buy an AMD Ryzen: https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution Ryzen is only affected by "Spectre variant one, Bounds Check Bypass" It's fixed by OS updates with negligible performance impact expected.
xioxox 9y ago
How common is the Linux segfault problem on Ryzen now? Just reading about the horrible RMA procedure puts me off AMD unless they can clean up their terrible handling of this problem.
- paulmd 9y ago
  It's still out there. To be clear, virtually no chips before Week 25 pass the segfault test, a large number of chips afterwards pass the segfault test. AMD clearly either upped their production standards or is binning out the worst chips. But there is still a baseline of chips failing. Some reported instances: https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1635&tstart=0 https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1635&tstart=0 (user jcoiner, 1726PGT) https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1725&tstart=0 https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1725&tstart=0 (user scorpio810, 2x 1728SUS) https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1770&tstart=0 https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1770&tstart=0 (user ryzlin, 1733PGT) https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1785&tstart=0 https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1785&tstart=0 (user flyinryzen1700, 1737SUS) https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1830&tstart=0 https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1830&tstart=0 (user skimba 1725PGT, user xtronom 1728PGT) https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1860&tstart=0 https://community.amd.com/thread/215773?start=1860&tstart=0 (user jc_yang, 1742SUS) https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/76q7ne/got_a_defective_ryzen_7_1700_on_rma_process/dofye3u/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/76q7ne/got_a_defective... (user grosbof 1733SUS) https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7ar15o/psa_amazon_is_still_selling_preweek_25_ryzens/dpc5iue/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7ar15o/psa_amazon_is_s... (user triplesal, 1733PGS) https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7ar15o/psa_amazon_is_still_selling_preweek_25_ryzens/dpcrkv0/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7ar15o/psa_amazon_is_s... (user istockporno, 1726PGT) Presumably this is something that will be fixed in the Zen+ stepping/Pinnacle Ridge (Ryzen 2 - not to be confused with Zen2, which will release in 2019?, likely as the Ryzen 3 series). But for the meantime, be aware that you are absolutely buying silicon with known issues and that you should test it and RMA if necessary, and that there is fixed silicon coming within a couple months here that will probably run significantly faster due to process improvements.